grief – Susan Uhlig

The Trouble with Heroes

Posted on August 4, 2025January 12, 2026 by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

The Trouble with Heroes (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025) by Kate Messner is a compelling read.

Finn Connelly is about to fail seventh grade. He’s not a hero like his dad was. He’s never been in the news like Dad, until now. For vandalizing a cemetery. The daughter of the dead woman will drop the charges, if he will climb all forty-six Adirondack High Peaks this summer. And he has to bring along the dead woman’s dog!

I love the first two lines: “If I were a better kid, this story would start with my seventh-grade diploma. Instead, is starts with this.” What follows is a news clipping with the headline “Local Cemetery Vandalized.” How could you not read on after that?

See this prolific author’s books here and also sign up for her newsletter on the same page. And, yes, Kate has climbed all those mountains that her character Finn climbs!!!

That Smudge of Smoke

Posted on September 25, 2023February 7, 2024 by Susan Uhlig

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

That Smudge of Smoke (Bealu Books, October 1, 2023*) by Edith M. Hemingway is such a good historical read. This story connects two different time periods, 1929 and 2015–via a diary hidden in a door salvaged from an old Chesapeake Bay steamboat–and two twelve-year-olds dealing with life changes.

In 1929, Penelope Sinclair (Piper) has tragically lost her mother and has to go live aboard the steamboat, S.S. City of Atlanta, with her father, the busy captain of the ship. Her teacher gives her the diary to encourage her to keep writing. We get to be with Piper through all her grief and experiences on board until there’s a collision with another steamer.

Eighty-six years later, we pick up with Garrett Stevens, whose injured Army Sergeant dad is in a coma. Garrett and his mother have had to move in with his grandparents. When Garrett slams a door in anger, a panel pops off and there’s the hidden diary. Somehow, reading Piper’s experiences helps him through his own.

The story shares events and books from Piper’s life in 1929 as well. The salvaged door from an old Chesapeake Bay steamboat is real, which is very cool in itself. Plus, this book gives readers hope.

You can check out the author’s other books here and read about her and the real door here.
UPDATE: Book trailer link and the making of the book trailer.

(*I got to read an arc–the book is officially out next week.)

MG Novels, So Many Good Books

Pay Attention, Carter Jones

Posted on December 12, 2022December 9, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

I loved Pay Attention, Carter Jones (Clarion Books, 2019) by Gary D. Schmidt so much.

The book lives up to the opening line: “If it hadn’t been the first day of school, and if my mother hadn’t been crying her eyes out the night before, and if the fuel pump on the Jeep had been doing what a fuel pump on a Jeep is supposed to be doing, and if it hadn’t been raining like an Australian tropical thunderstorm – and I’ve been in one, so I know what it’s like – and if the very last quart of one percent milk hadn’t gone sour and clumped up, then probably my mother would never have let the Butler into our house.”

How could anyone not read on? Told from the viewpoint of 6th-grader Carter, the story is full of humor and grief. Read to find out why Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick–a British gentleman’s gentleman–has come. And what the real family problems are. Plus you’ll get to learn about cricket.

This is definitely a read-again-book. Don’t miss it!

Here’s an interview with Gary about the book–how it came to be and more. If you’ve never read anything by him before, you’ve missed out. Read his bio and check out this award winning author’s books.

So Many Good Books, YA Novels

Good Books from Harper Teen – The Heart is Not a Size & The Life of Glass

Posted on March 5, 2010December 30, 2022 by Susan Uhlig

heart-size The Heart is Not a Size (2010) by Beth Kephart
Georgia talks her friend Riley into going on a humanitarian trip to Juarez, Mexico to the squatter village of Anapra where they work on building a home. How is Georgia going to deal with her anxiety attacks in another country and culture?
This book was so good – really had the feel of what it is like visiting a 3rd world country.
Read about the author here at her publisher’s site and check out her blog where she recently talked about having to “kill her darlings.”

LifeofGlass The Life of Glass (2010) by Jillian Cantor deals with grief, growing up changes, and changes and adjustments within a family.
Melissa’s father has died, her best friend Ryan is falling for the new girl, she’s jealous of her older sister’s beauty and boyfriend, and now Mom is beginning to date. Will looking at her father’s journal be enough to keep him “there” for her?
Read about Jillian on her website and listen to a reading of her book on the February 28th entry on her blog.

So Many Good Books, YA Novels

Two novels in verse about grief by Lisa Schroeder

Posted on June 5, 2009February 4, 2026 by Susan Uhlig

I heart you, you haunt me (Simon Pulse 2008) and Far from You (Simon Pulse 2009) by Lisa Schroeder both deal with the grief caused by death.
iheartyou In the first book, I heart you, you haunt me, Ava’s boyfriend has died and we see what she’s thinking in short tight verse. One moving example:
“If tears
could bring him back,
there’d be enough
to bring him back
a hundred times.”
But then Ava starts hearing and seeing Jackson. Is she going crazy or is he a ghost? If he’s a ghost, why is he haunting her?

In Lisa’s second book, Far from You, Alice’s grief is much older than Ava’s, but still Alice has not let it go. She’s resentful of her stepmother and her newborn half-sister (emphasis on half!). She and her best friend have had a disagreement and aren’t really talking. Alice’s dad makes her go on a trip with the three of them and a snowstorm changes her life.

Read about this Oregon author at www.lisaschroederbooks.com. I met Lisa through the creator of KidLit Central. Thanks, Kim, for the introduction and for loaning me the last book.